JP2002280955A - Transmission method and transmission system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a transmission method and system that can properly select a terminal of a destination in the case of multiple address communication by near distance communication. SOLUTION: The transmission method and system selects an optional number of terminals, that are able to transmit data by communication adopting a prescribed transmission system, retrieves terminals that are actually in a communication enable state among the registered terminals, displays the terminals found out at least by the retrieval as a list and broadcasts prescribed data to all the terminals found out by the retrieval.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a transmission method and a radio transmission apparatus suitable for radio transmission between a plurality of terminals using, for example, a short-range radio transmission technique.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, it has been proposed to establish a wireless network (wireless network) using a wireless transmission system of a standard called Bluetooth (trademark), and it is being put to practical use. This wireless network wirelessly transmits, for example, voice data for telephone communication, image data for facsimile, and data for a computer using a 2.4 GHz frequency band between a plurality of devices. Wireless transmission distance is from a few meters to a maximum of 1
A relatively short-distance network up to about 00 m is assumed. For each type of data to be transmitted, a profile is defined which defines how the data is transmitted.

[0003] Details of the Bluetooth communication system are disclosed by the Bluetooth SIG, a standardization organization that has established standards.

[0004] Direct data transmission between, for example, a plurality of portable communication terminals using a wireless network of such a standard has been proposed and is being put to practical use. By being able to transmit data directly between multiple mobile communication terminals,
For example, a wireless communication circuit of this standard is built in a mobile phone terminal, and data obtained through the wireless phone line by the mobile phone terminal is wirelessly transferred to a terminal (for example, a personal computer device) having another built-in wireless communication circuit. It becomes possible to transmit.

[0005] The short-range wireless transmission system described above is a standard that is being standardized and is being adopted by many models, and depending on the use environment, many terminal devices exist within a range of about several meters. Therefore, there is a case where it is desired to perform the broadcast transmission for simultaneously transmitting the same data to the many terminal devices. When performing this broadcast transmission, it is necessary to select a terminal device to be transmitted by operating the terminal device of the transmission source.

[0006]

However, in the conventional broadcast transmission processing of this type of communication system, it is necessary to select the terminal device of the transmission destination for each unit, and the operation is troublesome. There was such a problem. For example, in the case of performing broadcast transmission to ten terminal devices, ten terminal selection operations are required, and there has been a problem that it is very troublesome. In order to solve this problem, for example, it is conceivable to automatically broadcast to a plurality of terminal devices registered in advance by a predetermined operation.

However, not all of the registered terminal devices are in a range where direct communication is possible, and if any of the registered terminal devices is located away from the range in which communication is possible, communication with the terminal is not possible. Communication error occurs. Also, even if the distance is within the range of direct communication,
Even when the terminal device is in a non-operation state, a communication error occurs and data transmission to the corresponding terminal device cannot be performed. This is the first known fact that communication has actually started, and it has been difficult for the user to know before starting broadcasting.

In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to make it possible to select a transmission destination terminal device satisfactorily when performing this type of short-range communication.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, an arbitrary number of terminal devices capable of data transmission by communication according to a predetermined transmission method are registered, and the registered terminal devices are set in a state where communication is actually possible. A terminal device is searched, and among the registered terminal devices, at least the terminal devices found in the search are displayed as a list, and predetermined data is broadcast to all the terminal devices found in the search. It was made.

[0010] By doing so, a list of terminal devices which can be directly communicated among the registered terminal devices is displayed in a list, and a process of performing broadcast transmission only to the displayed terminal device is executed. Become.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described.
This will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the present invention, Bluetooth (Blue)
This is a short-distance wireless transmission method called tooth (trademark), which is applied to a system that performs wireless transmission by establishing a wireless network between two or more devices. In the following description, this wireless transmission method is simply referred to as a short-range wireless transmission method.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of a terminal device that performs wireless transmission according to the present embodiment. In this example, a communication circuit for short-range wireless transmission is incorporated in a mobile phone terminal that performs wireless communication with a base station prepared in a wireless telephone network, separately from the circuit for wireless telephone communication, and is provided near the mobile phone terminal. This allows direct data transmission to and from another terminal device.

The configuration of the mobile phone terminal 10 shown in FIG. 1 will be described.
The antenna 11 is connected to the receiving circuit 13 and the transmitting circuit 18 via the duplexer 12 so that the signal received by the antenna 11 can be received by the receiving circuit 13 and transmitted by the transmitting circuit 18. The transmitted signal can be wirelessly transmitted from the antenna 11. The receiving circuit 13 and the transmitting circuit 18 are connected to a digital signal processor (hereinafter referred to as DSP) 14. The DSP 14 demodulates the received signal, performs a reception process for extracting various data such as audio data from the demodulated signal, a process for converting data to be transmitted such as audio data into a data configuration for transmission, and a modulation for transmission. For example, transmission processing such as processing to be performed is performed.

A speaker 15 for a call is connected to the DSP 14. When voice data is received, the received voice data is converted into an analog voice signal in the DSP 14, and the analog voice signal is converted. The output is made from the speaker 15. Further, a microphone 17 for a call is connected to the DSP 14, and this microphone 1
7 can be converted into digital audio data in the DSP 14 and transmitted. In addition, a speaker 16 for sounding a ringing tone and the like is provided separately from the speaker 15 for telephone calls.

The communication processing in the mobile phone terminal 10 is as follows.
It is executed under the control of the control unit 19. The control unit 19 includes a ROM 19a in which data such as a program necessary for operation as a mobile phone terminal is stored;
A RAM 19b used for storing input data and downloaded data is connected. RAM1
9b is provided with an area for storing setting data necessary for short-distance communication, for example, storing data registered for short-distance communication of the terminal. Details of the data registered for the short-range communication will be described later.

Further, a display unit 20 for displaying various characters, numerals, figures, and the like is provided, and a display according to an operation state is performed under the control of the control unit 19. In the case of this example, the display unit 20
A display panel capable of color display is used. Operation unit 40 including dial keys and various function keys
Is also supplied to the control unit 19, and the control unit 19 performs operation control according to the operation.
In addition, as the operation unit 40, in addition to keys normally provided as a telephone terminal such as a dial key, a roller for performing an operation of selecting a specific one from among those displayed on the display unit 20, or a left and right direction It has a key to give instructions.

The portable telephone terminal 10 of the present embodiment includes a short-range wireless communication unit 30 and uses the short-range wireless communication unit 30 to enable short-range wireless communication using a short-range wireless transmission method. is there. The short-range wireless communication unit 30 is connected to an antenna 31 different from the above-described antenna 11 for wireless telephone communication, and directly communicates with a communication terminal of the same standard at a short distance up to about 100 m. Communication is performed. The data transmission in the short-range wireless communication unit 30 is also controlled by the control unit 19,
Data is exchanged between the DSP 14 and the short-range wireless communication unit 30 as necessary.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the short-range wireless communication unit 30. The transmission / reception processing unit 2 in the short-range wireless communication unit 30 to which the antenna 31 is connected performs high-frequency signal processing to execute wireless transmission processing and wireless reception processing. Signals transmitted and received by the transmission / reception processing unit 2 are transmitted on channels set at 1 MHz intervals in the 2.4 GHz band. However, the signal of each channel is subjected to a process called frequency hopping in which a transmission frequency is changed at a slot interval described later. If frequency hopping is performed for each slot, the frequency is switched 1600 times per second since one slot is 625 μsec, so that interference with other wireless communication is prevented. As a modulation method of the wireless transmission signal, a modulation method called GFSK (Gaussian filtered FSK) is applied. This modulation method is a frequency shift keying method in which the frequency transfer characteristic is band-limited by a low-pass filter having a Gaussian distribution.

The signal received by the transmission / reception processing unit 32 and the signal to be transmitted by the transmission / reception processing unit 32 are subjected to baseband processing by a data processing unit 33. In the standard of the short-distance wireless transmission system to which this example is applied, a TDD (Time Division Duplex) system for basically performing transmission and reception alternately is applied, and the data processing unit 33 performs processing of transmission slots alternately. The processing of the reception slot is performed. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, for example, when one device performing wireless transmission is set as a master and the other device is set as a slave, data of a slot configuration is transmitted from the master to the slave during a period of one slot (625 μsec). (A in FIG. 3)
During the slot, data of the slot configuration is transmitted from the slave to the master (B in FIG. 3). Hereinafter, the alternate transmission is repeated as long as the transmission continues. However, as described above, the frequency for wireless transmission is frequency f (k), f (k +
1), f (k + 2) ... In the standard of the short-distance wireless transmission system to which this example is applied, continuous use of a plurality of slots is possible depending on the transmission rate at that time.

Returning to the description of FIG. 2, the data processing unit 33 is provided with the control unit 19 (FIG.
Is connected to supply the received data to the control unit 19 (or the DSP 14 or the like connected to the control unit 19), or transmit the data supplied from the control unit 19 or the DSP 14 to the data processing unit 33 in the transmission slot. Is performed. Processing for short-range wireless transmission in the transmission / reception processing unit 32, the data processing unit 33, and the interface unit 34 is executed under the control of the controller 35.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a packet structure of one slot of data wirelessly transmitted according to the short-distance wireless transmission standard of the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 4A, a 72-bit access code is added to the beginning of one packet, followed by a 54-bit header, and the remaining section is a payload that is actual transmission data. I have. The section of the payload is set to a variable length according to the amount of data to be transmitted.

The access code is composed of a 4-bit preamble and a 64-bit sync word as shown in FIG. 4B, and no data is arranged in the remaining sections. As shown in FIG. 4C, the header includes an address (AM ADR) for each device, a type indicating a type of payload, and bits (FLOW, FLOW,
ARQN, SEQN) and an error check bit (HEC).

Next, the portable telephone terminal 1 of the present embodiment equipped with the short-range wireless transmission system in which data is wirelessly transmitted as described above.
0, a process for performing short-range wireless transmission will be described. In this example, as shown in FIG. 5, for example, the mobile phone terminal 10 and other plural terminal devices perform short-distance wireless transmission and perform broadcast transmission for transmitting the same data. However, the broadcast transmission here refers to not only a case where data is simultaneously transmitted to a plurality of terminal devices but also a case where the same data is sequentially transmitted to corresponding terminal devices. In other words, when there are two transmission destination terminal devices, a case where, after transmitting certain data to one terminal device, the process of transmitting the same data to another terminal device is subsequently performed There is also. Which method is used for broadcast transmission depends on
For example, it is determined by a profile defined for each data transmission type.

Here, as shown in FIG. 5, the portable telephone terminal 10 serves as a transmission source (client), and another portable telephone terminal 91 and a desktop personal computer device are used as terminals of the broadcast transmission. It is assumed that four terminal devices 92, a portable data processing terminal device (PDA) 93, and a notebook computer device 94 have been registered in advance. In this case, each of the four terminal devices has a terminal 1
0 is registered with a name to be displayed as a device name. Specifically, for example, the mobile phone terminal 91 includes:
"Mr. A's cell phone" is registered, and "Mr. A's personal computer" is registered in the desktop personal computer device 92, and the portable data processing terminal device (PD
A) In 93, "B's PDA" is registered,
The notebook computer 94 is registered as "Note C's notebook". The data of the registered name is stored in, for example, the RAM 1 connected to the control unit 19 in the mobile phone terminal 10.
9b. The data of such a registered name is stored together with, for example, an absolute address of each terminal (that is, an address different for each device specified by the short-range wireless communication system).

Next, a process for performing batch transmission to the terminal devices registered in the portable telephone terminal 10 will be described with reference to a flowchart of FIG. This batch transmission process is executed under the control of the control unit 19 in the mobile phone terminal 10. Although the details of the data to be transmitted are not described here, for example, at the time of starting the collective transmission operation, data (for example, e-mail data) to be collectively transmitted to a plurality of terminals is stored in the terminal 10 in advance.
It is assumed that it is prepared within.

The process for batch transmission will be described below. First, it is determined whether or not a mode for selecting a terminal device to be transmitted has been set by a key operation of a user or the like (step S1).
1) When the mode is set, a list of communication partner terminal devices registered in the mobile phone terminal 10 is displayed on the display unit 20 under the control of the control unit 19 (step S12).
As a list display, for example, as shown in FIG. 5, when four terminals 91, 92, 93, and 94 are registered,
As shown in a display screen 20A shown in FIG.
1, 92, 93, and 94 are displayed in a list with device names registered for each terminal.

In this state, the control unit 19 determines whether or not an instruction to search for a registered device has been given by a user's key operation or the like (step S13). Until there is an operation to execute this search, the process waits while the list is displayed in step S12.

When it is determined in step S13 that there is a search instruction, a process of searching for a partner terminal that performs direct communication by the short-range wireless transmission method is performed. In the process of searching for a communication partner terminal, an inquiry packet, which is a signal for searching for a communication partner specified by the short-range wireless transmission system, is transmitted periodically from the antenna 31 connected to the communication unit 30 for a predetermined time. The setting of the transmission channel used when transmitting the inquiry packet is prescribed in advance in the short-range wireless transmission method.

The terminal device that has received the inquiry packet returns the address of its own station or the like as a response signal.
Then, by determining whether or not the response signal has been received, it can be determined whether or not each registered terminal has been successfully searched.

In such a search process, it is determined whether all the registered terminal devices have been searched (step S1).
4). At this time, if only some of the registered terminal devices can be searched, only the searched terminal devices are displayed in a list on the display unit 20 (step S1).
5). For example, in this example, it is assumed that the PDA 93 cannot be searched by the mobile phone terminal 10 among the four registered terminals 91 to 94 as shown in FIG. In this case, as shown in a display screen 20B shown in FIG. 7B, only the three terminals 91, 92, and 94 that have been searched are displayed as a list with device names registered for each terminal. Will be done. At this time, for example, a batch transmission button display 2
2 is displayed on the screen. Also, a cursor display 21 for individually selecting a terminal is simultaneously displayed on the screen.

If it is determined in step S14 that all the registered terminal devices have been searched, all the registered terminal devices remain displayed on the list screen (step S16). However, after the search, the batch transmission button display 22 as shown in FIG. 7B is simultaneously displayed on the list screen.

As described above, in step S15 or S16
In the state where the list of searched terminals is displayed, it is determined whether or not an operation of selecting the batch transmission button display 22 has been performed (step S17). When the corresponding operation has been performed, the list screen is displayed. A process of broadcasting transmission data prepared in advance using the communication unit 30 is performed on all displayed devices (step S18).

If the batch transmission operation is not performed in step S17, it is determined whether or not a device has been selected from the list of searched devices (step S1).
9) When a device is selected, the selected 1
A process of transmitting prepared transmission data to only one or a plurality of devices using the communication unit 30 (broadcast transmission when a plurality of selected terminals are used) is performed (step S20). .

If no device is selected in step S19, the transmission process here is terminated.

In this way, by performing the broadcast transmission for transmitting data to a plurality of terminals at substantially the same time, the terminals which can actually perform data communication among the terminals registered in the terminal 10 are displayed in a list. Therefore, the user who uses the terminal 10 knows in advance which terminals are capable of broadcasting, and improves usability compared to a case where any terminal is displayed as a communication error after starting broadcasting. .

In addition, a process of transmitting data only to the terminals that can actually perform data communication among the terminals registered in the terminal 10 is performed. In this case, no attempt is made to execute data transmission, no useless transmission start processing is executed, and broadcast communication can be quickly performed to a plurality of terminal devices.

In the processing shown in the flowchart of FIG. 6 and the display example of FIG. 7, after searching for registered terminals, terminals not detected by the search are deleted from the list display. , Devices not found in the search,
A list may be displayed in a manner different from the terminal detected in the search. The flowchart in FIG. 8 illustrates a processing example in this case. The flowchart from the determination of the registered terminal list display operation in step S11 to the determination in step S14 as to whether or not all the registered devices have been searched are illustrated in FIG. 6, the same screen as the display screen 20A shown in FIG. 7A is displayed on the registered terminal list display screen as shown in FIG. 9A.

If it is determined in step S14 that only some of the registered terminal devices can be searched, the searched terminal device and the unsearched terminal device are determined. A list is displayed on the display unit 20 in a distinguished manner (step S21). For example, in this example, among the registered terminals 91 to 94 prepared as shown in FIG.
It is assumed that DA 93 could not be searched by mobile phone terminal 10. In this case, as shown in a display screen 20C shown in FIG.
2 and 94, for example, display device names 23a, 23b, and 23c registered in a solid frame, and the terminal 93 that could not be searched is registered in a device enclosed in a broken line frame, for example. The name is displayed 24 so as to be distinguished. At this time, the batch button display 22 is performed simultaneously. Then, a cursor display 21 for individually selecting terminals is also displayed on the screen at the same time.

When it is determined in step S14 that all the registered terminal devices have been searched, all the registered terminal devices remain displayed as a list screen (step S22). However, after the search, the batch transmission button display 22 as shown in FIG. 9B is simultaneously displayed on the list screen.

As described above, in step S21 or S22
It is determined whether or not an operation of selecting the batch transmission button display 22 has been performed in a state where the list of the searched terminals has been displayed in step S23 (step S23). A process of broadcasting transmission data prepared in advance using the communication unit 30 is performed on all the devices displayed in step S24 (step S24).

If the batch transmission operation is not performed in step S23, it is determined whether or not a device has been selected from the list of searched devices (step S2).
5) When a device is selected, the selected 1
A process of transmitting transmission data prepared in advance to only one or a plurality of devices using the communication unit 30 (broadcast transmission when a plurality of selected terminals are used) is performed (step S26). . In the unlikely event that a terminal that is not searched is selected by cursor display or the like, for example, on the display screen of the display unit,
Display a message such as "Cannot communicate with the corresponding terminal" to warn that communication is not possible.

If no device is selected in step S25, the transmission process here is terminated.

As described above, when a list of registered terminals is displayed, the searched terminal and the terminal that was not found are displayed separately, so that the terminal that is not searched is which terminal. It can be easily determined from the list display.

Here, for simplicity of explanation,
As shown in FIG. 9B, the display 23a,
223b, 23c and display 24 of terminals not searched
However, for example, when a display panel capable of color display is used as the display unit 20, the display mode may be changed by changing the display color.
For example, as a display mode of a searched terminal, white characters are displayed on a blue background, and as a display mode of a terminal that is not searched, a half-bright ground having a different color or the same color as the blue background but having a lower brightness is used. The colors may be displayed in black characters so that they can be distinguished.

In the display examples of FIGS. 7 and 9, only the registered terminals are displayed as the display after the search. However, the search processing is performed and the communication is performed by the same short-range wireless communication system. When an unregistered terminal is searched, the terminal may be displayed on the screen at the same time. At this time, the unregistered terminal is also displayed in a manner distinguishable from the registered terminal. When the batch transmission operation is performed, the user may be made to select whether or not to transmit the same data to the newly searched terminal.

In the above-described embodiment, the present invention is applied to the case where data is broadcast between a portable telephone terminal and a data processing terminal such as a computer device. Can also be applied to the case where short-range wireless transmission is performed using

In the embodiment described so far,
Although the short-distance wireless transmission standard called Bluetooth is applied as the wireless transmission method, the processing of the present invention can be applied to wireless transmission using a wireless network based on another wireless transmission standard.

[0049]

According to the present invention, a list of terminal devices which can directly communicate with each other among registered terminal devices is displayed. Therefore, before starting the broadcast transmission, it becomes possible to determine from the list display which terminal device which can actually communicate is which terminal device among the registered terminal devices, and the usability as a communication terminal is improved. improves. In addition, it is not necessary to try to start communication with a terminal device in a communication disabled state, and broadcast can be promptly transmitted only to the terminal device as needed.

In this case, when the terminal devices found in the search are displayed in a list, the registered terminal devices not found in the search are displayed in a display mode different from that of the found terminal device. Which terminal device cannot be transmitted can be quickly determined from the display.

Further, when displaying a terminal device in the list display, when there is a name registered in the terminal device, the registered name is displayed, so that the user can easily understand the name set. As a result, a terminal device capable of performing broadcast transmission is displayed, and usability is further improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a short-range wireless communication unit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a transmission example according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of a packet configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing an example of a communication state according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an example (example 1) of transmission processing in a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a display example according to the example of FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an example (example 2) of transmission processing in a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing a display example according to the example of FIG. 8;

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Mobile telephone terminal, 11 ... Antenna, 12 ... Duplexer, 13 ... Receiving circuit, 14 ... Digital signal processor (DSP), 15, 16 ... Speaker, 17 ... Microphone, 18 ... Transmission circuit, 19 ... Control part, 19a ... RO
M, 19b RAM, 20 display unit, 20A to 20C
Display screen, 21: cursor display, 30: short-range wireless communication unit, 31: antenna, 40: operation unit, 91: mobile phone terminal, 92: desktop personal computer device, 93: portable data processing terminal device (PDA), 94 ...
Notebook computer equipment

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Rie Kaku 6-7-35 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo F-term in Sony Corporation (reference) 5K033 CB13 DA19 EA07 EC02 5K067 AA25 BB04 BB21 CC14 FF23 GG01 GG11 HH05 HH23

Claims (6)

[Claims] An arbitrary number of terminal devices capable of data transmission by communication according to a predetermined transmission method are registered, and a terminal device which is in a communicable state among the registered terminal devices is searched for. A transmission method in which, among registered terminal devices, at least a list of terminal devices found in the search is displayed as a list, and predetermined data is broadcast to all terminal devices found in the search. 2. The transmission method according to claim 1, wherein, when displaying a list of the terminal devices found in the search, the registered terminal devices not found in the search are different from the terminal devices found in the search. A transmission method for displaying in a display mode. 3. The transmission method according to claim 1, wherein when the terminal device is displayed in the list display, when the terminal device has a registered name, the registered name is displayed. Method. 4. A communication means for performing communication according to a predetermined transmission method, a display means for displaying information on a communication partner, a storage means for storing an arbitrary number of terminal devices which can communicate with the communication means, Among the terminal devices stored in the storage unit, a search is made for a terminal device that is actually in a communicable state with the communication unit, and the terminal devices found in the search are displayed as a list on the display unit. For all terminal devices
A transmission device comprising: control means for broadcasting predetermined data. 5. The transmission device according to claim 4, wherein the control unit, when displaying a list of the terminal devices found in the search, displays the terminal devices in the search in the terminal devices stored in the storage unit. A transmission device wherein a terminal device not found is displayed on the display means in a display mode different from that of the terminal device found. 6. The transmission device according to claim 4, wherein said storage means is capable of storing data of a name registered in the terminal device, and said control means, when displaying the terminal device in a list display, When the name registered in the terminal device is stored in the storage means, the transmission device displays the registered name.